Lower Your Netflix Bandwith Bill by 75%

Want to save on your Netflix bandwith bills by 75% ? You are in luck because I have details on an easy new tweak for Netflix that will save you a boatload of money.

About 3 months ago I told you about a great new feature that Netflix had where you could turn off Netflix HD streaming and save yourself a fortune using Netflix to view movies. At this point those of you who do not have netflix might be asking how it saves a fortune when Netflix is only $8 a month. Netflix might be $8 but as hundreds of our readers have shared with us the Bandwith fee’s your internet provider will hose you for are not.

Basically the telecom company quickly realized that Netflix was stealing their customers with a better and cheaper service and here in Canada the response was to get the CRTC to ok charging massive amounts for bandwith. Simply put Netflix started costing a fortune for those of us who watch alot of films and tv shows with the service forcing us to go back to watching Cable or Satellite… or at least that seemed to be the plan for the telecom companies.

Netflix however just rode in on a white horse and has recently made some changes that are going to save those of you who have been complaining about high bandwith bills alot of money. Rather then waiting for Telecom companies to do the right thing Netflix has stepped up to the plate with new technology to make life easier and cheaper for their customers.

I am not sure if this applies in the USA or not but now watching movies & TV shows in Canada will use 2/3 less data on average with minimal impact to video quality. For example, watching 30 hours of Netflix movies & TV shows will only use 9 GB of data, well below most Canadian ISP data caps. Previously, 30 hours from Netflix typically used 31 GB.

To set your video quality do the following;

Login to your Netflix Account

Click Your Account / Help in the Top Right Hand corner

Click Manage video Quality

Choose one of the three video settings

Good – 0.3gigs per hour

Better – 0.7 gigs per hour

Best – 2.3 gigs her hour ( HD )

I can tell you that I have been using the BETTER setting for my video for about a month now and have not noticed any real difference between it and the Best setting. I mainly watch TV shows and documentaries and some older films. That said when I watched the new addition Iron Man 2 I did notice it was not HD but it was by no means a show stopper.

I just now have set my settings to GOOD just to see how that compares and will report back with my findings. Alot of our community members have complained about how atrocious their bandwith bills have been but I can say that I have never gone over using the Better setting and I watch ALOT of TV shows on Netflix. Netflix sucks in Canada for new release films but it is outstanding for TV shows and keeps improving every week. Hopefully this tip will save you a pile of bandwith.

Let me know how you make out and if you have any trouble leave a comment I will do my best to help you but honestly its pretty darn easy! Most of you who read our site are in the United States so please confirm for me whether this feature is available for our US readers.

If you do not have a Netflix account read my Review of the Netflix service. Do not just read it for my opinion but read it for the 128 Netflix user comments which will help you decide if Netflix is for you.

Unfortunately, Netflix only offers this ‘scale-down’ option in Canada at the moment. But with impending bandwidth caps south of the border (see: http://gigaom.com/video/att-bandwidth-cap-netflix/ ), it’s an option they’ll likely be rolling out to Americans soon.

If you want to hear us talk about this new Canadian feature on the Netpix Podcast, feel free to check out: http://wp.me/p1nY7i-1N